American expelled from Russia / She reportedly offered to aid attacks on U.S.

Anna Badkhen, Chronicle Staff Writer

Published 4:00 am, Thursday, January 30, 2003

2003-01-30 04:00:00 PDT Moscow -- Russian security services said they had deported on Wednesday an American woman who had made repeated attempts to contact international terrorist groups like al Qaeda, offering to help them carry out attacks against the United States.

A duty officer at the Federal Security Service (FSB), the successor agency to the KGB, said Megan McRee, a 35-year-old computer programmer, had been expelled because she had lived in Moscow for two years without registering her visa, as required by law.

But during her stay here, the officer told Russia's NTV television, McRee used the Internet to contact "various terrorist groups around the world, including al Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood," an international Islamist organization based in Egypt.

"She offered them various scenarios for terrorist acts in the United States and proposed to carry them out herself," said the duty officer, who did not give his name.

FLOWN TO LOS ANGELES

FSB officials took McRee to Moscow's Sheremetyevo-2 airport Wednesday afternoon and put her on an Aeroflot flight to Los Angeles. Criminal charges were not filed against McRee.

Officials at the U.S. Embassy could not be reached for comment on the case.

President Vladimir Putin, who says he is fighting a war against international terrorism in the breakaway republic of Chechnya, was one of the first world leaders to embrace President Bush's war against terrorists after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

In line with that stance, another FSB officer told Channel One television that McRee had been deported "for the sake of the United States and the world."

But a report by the state-run Rossiya television channel raised questions as to whether McRee could really pose a serious threat.

Rossiya said she had told the FSB she had left the United States several years ago to escape from the CIA, which, she allegedly said, was persecuting her. The television channel said McRee had lived in Romania before coming to Russia two years ago and had hoped to seek political asylum in Russia.

HOLLYWOOD ATTACKS

Rossiya reported that McRee had urged the extremist groups that she had contacted to avoid attacks on large facilities, such as airports and government buildings, because of the expense and logistical complexities. Instead, McRee had proposed attacks on easier facilities such as "Hollywood studios and Hollywood actors."

Most of her e-mails to the extremist groups went unanswered, Rossiya reported. It said the few respondents had rejected her offers.

NTV footage showed McRee touching up her makeup in her rented Moscow apartment Wednesday morning before she was taken to the airport. For a few seconds, McRee stared straight at the camera, silently. NTV then showed her slumping in a chair at the apartment, shaking her head, saying, in English: "For no reason at all."

McRee became the 29th U.S. citizen forced to leave Russia in the past two months.

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In December, Russia decided to expel 27 Peace Corps volunteers, saying two members of the program had been spying for the United States, an allegation U. S. officials denied. Also last month, Russia refused entry to Irene Stevenson, an American labor activist who had lived and worked in Russia since 1989.

The expulsions, as well as Moscow's decision to ended a 7-year-old mission by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe that monitored human rights in war-torn Chechnya, have raised fresh concerns among international observers about the depth of Putin's commitment to building a democratic society in Russia.

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